is the president making republicans an offer they can't refuse? jodi arias and snow white. why has one theory involving a fairytale character taken center stage in this increasingly bizarre murder trial. and reaction is certain pouring in. what are you saying regarding the reremarks president obama made boo camilla harris. we begin with developing news from north korea where there is word of that country putting in place two missiles for possible use against the south. and even warning some countries to evacuate its diplomats. jim maceda is in seoul, south korea, for us. jim, if you got us there, we're with you live at this point. i hope you can hear us but here is my question to you. does it seem like it does to us -- >> i'm assuming that the first question is about the trigger. >> we're closer to a military check? are you hearing me? >> first question was trigger.

second question was -- >> i think jim is not hearing me, guys. jim, it's alex, can you hear me? i think we're having a little bit of an issue with our two-way. let's move on from that. we'll come back as soon as that gets cleared up with jim maceda in seoul, south korea. let's talk about what's developing today with nelson mandela, who is out of the hospital now. he was discharged after being treated for pneumonia. he was admitted to the hospital ten days ago. the 94-year-old had some fluid drained from his lungs to ease his breathing. we are going to have a live report for from you south africa coming your way in our next hour. from there to politics now. new today president obama's confronting critics from both sides on the budget he plans to send to congress on wednesday. the proposal aims to reduce the federal deficit by $1.8 trillion over a decade. >> and i will lay out these priorities in greater detail in the days ahead. it's a budget that doesn't spend beyond our means and it's a

budget that doesn't make harsh and unnecessary cuts that only serve to slow our economy. >> meantime, president obama is apologizing to california attorney general kamala harris for calling her the best looking attorney general in the country. >> he called her to apologize for the distraction created by his comments. and they are old friends and good friends, and he did not want in any way to diminish the attorney general's professional accomplishments and her capabilities. >> the president made the comment thursday at an off-camera fund-raiser near san francisco. sow praised harris as being brilliant and tough and then he added the comment about her looks. and the justice department has not said yet whether it will appeal friday's ruling by a federal judge striking down the age restrictions for the overthe counter purchase of the morning after pill. the judge said the restrictions

must end within 30 days, which means consumers now of any age can buy the emergency contraception without a prescription. joining me now, white house reporter forle "washington post," david knack myrnakamura n fox. with a good day to the both of you. ladies first here because the president is saying that his ideal budget is not this, but this is a compromise. so what do you think his calculation is here? >> i think what we saw yesterday was some of the democrats were very upset, a little surprised by the president's budget, and i think that's a good sign if the president views this as a compromise. if this wasn't a serious negotiation, then democrats would not have been sup jet by it. they would have been cheering on the president. congressman chris van hollen, who has been very supportive of the white house, said he's a little nervous about the president's procedure here. he's worried the president's opening offer may be viewed as that, an opening offer instead of an end game. it will be interesting to see

whether republicans buy this as an end game or whether they're going to try to keep getting the president to negotiate on some of these other plans that he's involved in its budget. >> okay. david, a couple of the key points here, let's go through them one by one. first up, smaller cost of living adjustments to social security. then $400 billion in cuts to medicare by reducing payments to the health care providers. we have a payroll tax hike on high-income medicare beneficiaries, and a new tobacco tax to pay for a universal pre-k program. david, it's a mix of cuts, also tax hikes. is it the easiest sell to the public for the white house? >> yeah. the white house had a choice to make. they could lay out a grand vision of where the president would go in a perfect liberal democratic world. they said, no, we're going to take another tact which is we've already negotiated with congress, with speaker boehner just a few months ago on the fiscal cliff right before the new year, and we laid out a number of offers. they didn't get taken, but it would be pointless to sort of put forth a budget that didn't

take that into reality. that's the white house's idea is that, you know, let's make sure that it's in the budget as a baseline. lauren is right though, the president has been criticized in the past for moving to the middle too quickly and giving up a lot of ground before the negotiations even start. so i think that's the nervous part. bernie sanders, an independent who caucuses with democrats in the senate, was very upset about the president sort of agreeing to already lower the cost of living adjustment for seniors on their social security. it's something that democrats hold dear. but republicans are saying we need tough cuts. the president now is going to be able to say i'm making the tough cuts but look at my other praepales. we want to raise taxes to help out. this is the best play for a grand bargain. >> so there is the framework here as you're saying for a grand bargain, but the time table for that is what? how do you see that playing out? >> i think you're going to see this basically be negotiated as part of the next go-around with the debt ceiling increase. we all remember a couple years

ago, this has been an ongoing issue, but the debt ceiling is going to expire in the summer, and i think you're going to see this budget talks begin now and advance until this deadline that's going to come in the summer when the nation's credit will be at risk again, and they're basically going to see if they can get some sort of grand bargain or smaller bargain to get us past the next deadline. the problem is and the president himself says we keep lurching from crisis to crisis. they would like to lay out a longer term program to reduce deficit and invest in the future but they haven't had a lot of success so far. >> guys, lots of movement on gun control this week. lauren, the president is heading now to connecticut on monday to push the senate to act on new gun control measures. do you think it's risky for him politically to keep pressing this if nothing greater than universal background checks can get passed? >> you know, i don't think it's risky for the president. universal background checks is his best hope. he's not going to get more than universal background checks. so it doesn't hurt him politically to be stumping for this issue. this is something that the president has continued to say.

newtown was one of the worst days of his presidency. he cares deeply about this issue. it's a little politically vul they aer inable for some of the democrats up for re-election. some people in montana, in arkansas, it may be a risky negotiation to keep pushing on this issue. but for the president i think this is something he holds dear and he's going to keep pushing on. >> i want to thank you both so much for your time. we appreciate that. we're going to go back to jim maceda. i know we had a mess there with the satellite picture but let's go back to jim maceda in seoul, south korea, for us. good evening your time. it feels every day we're a little closer to military conflict. can you give us a reality check? >> reporter: well, the reality check is that i think for the first time since this situation began, this latest current crisis which goes back to february now, we have been on an

increasing war of footing, but i must say for the first day since that began in february, i have a feeling all sides involved are taking a breather. for the first day we haven't heard a specific threat from kim jong-un or from his regime. you get the impression that the americans and the south koreans now are looking at some kind of a window for diplomacy. obviously everybody is sitting now and watching and waiting for the other side to blink. there's no question about that. you've got destroyers, u.s. destroyers, on one side of the coast. you've got south korean destroyers, aegis destroyers, on the other side of the coast watching and waiting. watching for the north koreans' every move, but the fact that the u.s. has dialed down its show of force during these ongoing war games is already

very significant. many think that -- many analysts think that that contributed to the escalation of tension. so this erratic behavior on the part of kim jong-un. so that is already an interesting sign that we're not seeing f-22s or b-2s or b-52s in the sky now. it just feels more relaxed, more comfortable. it's on the brink, but you get the impression that all of the sides are trying to back away from that brink now and try to figure out how they can not just save face but how they can advance diplomacy now. >> yeah. but, jim, were the north koreans to strike, is there an early warning system in place? >> reporter: yes, of course there's an early warning system in place, and that's what the ships are doing right now. again, the aegis ships, the south korean aegis ships, the destroyers, the american destroyers, are there. obviously they can take out

missiles in the sky, but they also have an extraordinarily sophisticated radar system. so they are watching. they are tracking movements. if there's going to be a massive frontal assault, conventional, of course, the idea of a massive nuclear strike is simply fantasy right now, but if there's a massive conventional assault, you will see -- you must see movement on the part of north korean troops, artillery pieces, material of various sorts. that will be seen, so they'll know when the north koreans up the ante. they may not know the exact minute that takes place, but they will certainly know when that is about to happen and they will be prepared for that. >> okay. nbc's jim maceda in seoul, south korea. thank you, jim. let's go from there now to the weather. today marks the beginning of peak bloom for washington, d.c.'s cherry blossom trees. that's a bit later than expected because of the lingering cold. nbc meteorologist dylan dreyer is very brave and joining me in studio as we ask, okay, what's

up with this and what can we expect across the country now? >> it's going to get better. i can promise you that. we're going to see warmer weather work in as early as tomorrow. we should get into the 60s in new york and 70s in washington, d.c., so the peak has been pushed back. now we're going to see the peak cherry blossoms up until about april 10th. that's the time frame now, april 6th to the 10th. 44 in new york city. only 49 in washington, d.c., but look at the warm-up in the middle of the country where all that yellow is. that's what's going to start spreading eastward as we go throughout the rest of the weekend. we have some snow but it is isolated to northern minnesota and northern wisconsin. you can see it is coming down pretty heavily across northeastern minnesota, and it's in that area we could end up with about six inches of snow with some isolated higher amounts. i'm sure that area even though they're used to the cold not really up for another spring snowstorm, but it's happening and it is going to stick around throughout the day today tapering off by tomorrow. 64 degrees in chicago today with some isolated thunderstorms.

mid-50s in new york city and washington, d.c., but watch what happens on sunday. that warm air starts to push eastward. we should hit 65 in new york, 67 in washington, d.c. the rain continues out in the pacific northwest and the middle of the country we should still be in the 70s, even 80s down across texas, but there is going to be a cold front that is going to bring some showers and thunderstorms through the plains as we go into sunday. some of those storms could be strong. especially in oklahoma. >> thanks for the heads up for those folks in oklahoma. in west coast headlines, some grounded planes may be flying high again. and you just can't make this stuff up. a connection between jodi arias and snow white and the seven dwarves. the very strange development in court this week. [ male announcer ] how do you measure happiness?

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some headlines making news out on the west coast for you. "the seattle times" has the front page story boeing finishes

tests of battery fix for 787. the article says federal regulators could approve the fix of the dreamliner batteries as early as the middle of this month. the worldwide fleet has been grounded 11 weeks and may not be carrying passengers though until june. splashed across the front page of "the dispatch" in arizona, unusual k-12 charter school set to open. it's about how a school district south of scottsdale is opening a move on when ready performance-based school in july. the initiative allows high-achieving students to prove they are capable of taking college-level courses and move to a community college after the tenth grade. now to the ongoing budget fight in washington. the president is expected to unveil his budget plan wednesday, but for now the white house is absorbing the new jobs number that came in lower than expected. nbc's peter alexander is at the white house for us, and with a happy saturday to you, peter, how is the white house interpreting the numbers for jobs here, and is there any kind of strategy to turn this around for next month.

>> reporter: senior administration official told us yesterday that they are, quote, disappointed that the jobs report numbers were not better. they believe that sequester had some impact on this, though at this point it's hard to know exactly how much that was. more likely than not it was less about sequester and more about a variety of other things according to analysts, including the payroll tax cut expiring. that means that the gains that americans had made over the last year in many ways were cut out, which means consumer confidence could go down which could mean that's why spending would go down. you'll notice that retail jobs in particular were down about 24,000 jobs just in the last year. in terms of what they do going forward, the president is really focused on trying through his budget to reduce deficits but also to focus on new infrastructure, on public works and on education, early education, in addition to job training. obviously those things cost money, but that's just one way he hopes to sort of reignite the economy. >> okay. with regard to the president's

new budget proposal, peter, did any of it catch anyone by surprise? >> reporter: you know, i think it caught some by surprise. frankly, the white house was hoping to catch some of the republicans by surprise that they were compromising as much as the white house would insist that it did. liberals say they were caught by surprise, that this included slowing down the growth of social security and medicare. that is one thing that according to senator tom harkin is something that democrats should not be doing. they shouldn't be the ones leading the charge on this. republican john boehner, the house speaker, said that the president is holding, quote, hostage entitlements by trying to get more taxes out of this new budget. we did hear from the president a short time ago through his weekly address where he referred to this new budget as, quote, not an ideal plan, but he said it does include some tough reforms that all sides agree are going to have to exist. >> okay. peter alexander, thank you for that. let's go now to the rising

tensions in north korea, which is warning foreign diplomats to make evacuation plans now saying it can't promise their safety beyond april 10th. reuters reports so far embassy staffs are remaining in place although russian officials say they're seriously studying the warning. joining me is jeffrey cane coming us to from seoul, south korea. i know you have spent some time close to the demilitarized zone, the dmz. what is the mood like? >> thanks for having me, alex. i think i heard you ask what it like here in seoul? or what is the mood like in seoul? >> in seoul, joffrey, but also on the dmz. you spent some time there. is it a super tense time there or are people taking this all in

stride? >> yes. actually, i have been to the dmz a few times over the past couple months. i can definitely say that things are tense in some areas, and some koreans are worried about the situation. at the same time a lot of koreans here and a lot of experts think that the dmz is actually not the place to expect any sort of north korean provocation. a lot of experts here think that actually off the west coast is going to be one of the tenser areas soon. when i was at the dmz, i did see quite a lot of activity there. there were a lot of helicopters going around, a lot of armored personnel vehicles, and the situation did seem a little tense, but at the same time the dmz is always one of the tensest areas in south korea. i wouldn't say that the current situation is going to escalate there in particular. >> you know, geoffry i'm reading

about what you wrote. you wrote south koreans aren't particularly worried about the rhetoric coming out of north korea, but it seems to be a bit more than mere rhetoric of late or are we wrong? is this just bluster from north korea and that's how people are interpreting it? >> yes, there's actually a lot of disagreement about that part in seoul. some people here think that this is simply bluster and this is rhetoric that will pass. but at the same time if you look at the rhetoric coming out of north korea, it's coming at a level we simply haven't heard in years or even decades. there is a lot of talk that there could be some sort of north korean attack or some sort of quick and containable assault, maybe a naval attack, an artillery strike, maybe what happened in 2010 when north korea struck a south korean island and killed four south koreans. this kind of thing does happen here, but for the most part

south koreans don't live tlar da their daily lives worrying about it. they have grown up with these threats. north korea says this kind of thing every few years. when you become accustomed to it, it just sounds like bluster. something could happen, but south koreans are not -- they're not losing sleep over it right now. >> okay. from the global post, geoffrey cain. thank you so much for your time. will anything change in college sports after the scandal at rutgers university? some are even defending the coach. some are even defending the

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now a check of today's number ones. first falling prices at the gas pumps. experts say prices have already pra peaked. the website 24/7 wall street lists the states where prices have fallen the most over the past year. indiana is first where pump prices are down almost 11.5%.

oregon and washington state are second and third respectively. each state's drivers playing 9.5% less than last year. fuel is just one of the reasons owning a car can be costly. when you factor in the price of the car and all the maintenance, the economists say shanghai is the most expensive city to own a car. sao paulo is second. new york is the most expensive in the u.s. gee, yogi, there's an official car at the ranger station. >> and it's all the way from washington, d.c. >> yogi bear, home of jelly stone park, maybe the most popular park in the cartoons but the national park that's likely to draw the most visitors this summer is the great smoky mountains national park. more than 9.5 million people went there last year, which is more than double the second most popular park which is the grand canyon. yosemite drew 3.8 million to rank therd ahead of yellowstone with its legendary old faithful, and fifth, colorado's rocky mountain national park. those are your number ones on

"weekends with alex witt." ♪ rocky mountain high

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the power of the "name your price" tool. only from progressive. welcome back to weekends with alex witt. headlines at the half for you. the parents of trayvon martin have settled a wrongful death claim against the homeowners' association. the agreement states the parties involved will keep the amount of the settlement confidential. he was shot and killed by george zimmerman. his trial is set for june. zimmerman has pleaded not guilty to second-degree murder. some cafeteria workers at a massachusetts middle school are out of a job today for letting 25 students go hungry. the students were denied launch because they didn't have quite enough money or their prepaid accounts didn't have sufficient funds. so those students were supposed to be given a cheese sandwich and milk but they say that never happened. the food service company fired four cafeteria employees and

apologized saying the employees acted on their own. in response the company will give students free lunches for the next three days next week. today president obama is defending his new budget plan. the full proposal will come out on wednesday, but the early details are drawing criticism from republicans and democrats alike. this morning the president said he's trying to find the middle ground. >> this is the compromise i offered the speaker of the house at the end of last year. while it's not my ideal plan to further reduce the deficit, it's a compromise i'm willing to accept in order to move beyond a cycle of short-term, crisis-driven decision making. >> joining me now, msnbc' newest weekend show host karen finney who is also a columnist for "the hill." and full republican congressman from virginia tom davis. i'm so glad you're coming on the show and i know karen, i e-mailed you and it's all good but i am so excited about your new show. >> i'm looking forward to it. jo didn't think you can get out of being on my show. >> no way, no how.

>> i'll begin with congressman davis. sir, the white house calls plans for cuts to social security and medicare spending, john boehner is saying the cuts are not going far enough but politically speaking won't voters view this as a compromise and expect republicans to just understand that? >> no, i don't think so. look, remember, most of these house members in particular are from pretty safe republican districts. they're going to respond to their republican constituency, but you got to give the president credit. he stepped outside the democratic comfort zone. he's come forward on this. but the time for tax hikes was in january. the tax increases went into effect. i think there would be an eruption if the would agree to much more in tax increases. >> so, karen, here is the flip side. all the criticism from democrats, they're upset about the proposed cuts to social security and medicare spending. how tough is it going to be for the president to get his own party on board? >> you know, i actually think that john boehner's reaction has made it such that it's not going

to be a problem, a question of getting the left on board, because i think his reaction basically showed that republicans are not at all sincere about wanting to work with the president. they won't accept the balanced approach. the president took some political risk. obviously these ideas had been out there for some time. this was a deal that had been on the table last year, and he knew that folks on the left and progressives and it's actually not just progressives, i want to be clear, because those cuts really concern a lot of people across the spectrum. so in doing that, he made it very clear that said i'm willing to take a risk and do something that's going to be politically uncomfortable and essentially the other side just said, you know, without even looking at it, that's a nonstarter. so i think that's where we start this process. i don't actually believe we're going to get to the point of having to negotiate the. si of it. >> interesting. >> alex, we're going to get there when the debt ceiling comes up in august. so, you know, this is kind of on the table. they're going to reach some conclusion. it may not be a big deal but

you'll get some kind of deal on that i think to avert it. >> you think for sure coming in august? >> yes. >> right, but i think it's -- it's not going to be the grand bargain. it's not going to be -- >> i agree with you. >> -- the let's sit down and really plan this out. >> okay. can we take a look at the latest jobs report because it was pretty weak, and i'd like us to take a listen to what one of my colleagues at cnbc said. >> if we have another bad year and if unemployment doesn't come down, it's going to be demagogue. it's going to be sequester and it's going to be that the republicans won't agree to this latest sort of faux offer from -- about a grand bargain and it's going to be the republicans obstructionist fault again. >> what do you make of that idea. if the gop could soon potentially find themselves on the hook for continued weak employment numbers? >> well, i mean, the reality is unemployment numbers are down because -- we have a bad report because of the tax increases that went into effect, both the payroll tax and taxes on higher income workers, and because of

obama care. if you take a look at the adp survey which came out a couple weeks ago, companies between 50 and 500, a drop in employment with those areas. people are worried about how they're going to implement this. the sequestering really has yet to come. maybe the hype of the administration has discouraged some employment in that area, but this is not the republicans' fault. >> i'm guessing, karen, you don't really agree with that as being the rb for the new jobs report. >> actually, i think there are as most economists have said a confluence of factors. i agree the payroll tax i think may have been part of it. i think a number of things contribute to it. here is the political point i want to make going forward. the point is there is increasing anxiety out there among americans about what is going to happen with our economy, and this sort of kick the can down the road approach is increasing that anxiety. now, i think the danger or republicans, we've seen poll after poll and just recently last week this feeling that the republican party is not willing to compromise, is not willing to

sit at the table and have a conversation. i think that has got to create some pressure i would hope for the two sides to come together because another bad jobs report, which, you know, i hope that doesn't happen, may be related to sequester but then i think it starts to say, come on, guys, when are you going to sit down at the table and fix the problem? >> traditionally the president gets the blame on these things. you can go back 30, 40 years, you can try to put it on congress, but at the end of the day the economy is going to be, you know, the president's problem one way or the another. >> but don't you think going back 30 and 40 years, that's all fine and good, but the way we analyze things in this day, don't you think people -- i mean, the president is setting himself up, he's going to put this on the republicans. the way we analyze and talk about this. >> he got his stimulus on this, he got his tax increases. the public knows what happens on these kind of issues. the reality this is more complicated than just the president or congress, but when

you talk about political blame, i don't think at the end of the day the republicans will take a larger hit than the democrats. >> part of the reason i disagree with that is we were seeing the president's policies were working, not as fast as we would like, doing a good job creating job but not to the pace we wanted, he's and been the one talking about concerns about doing things that would slow that down. if the other side doesn't at some point acknowledge the need to at least sit down and talk with him and instead just says, you know what, that idea is dead on arrival, i think that does create a bit of pressure and it makes people feel like one side is willing to try to do something and the other side isn't. >> okay. >> in framing the issue, the president has done a good job but republicans are always willing to sit down and talk with him. >> i think they are going to be having a dinner pretty soon. >> let's hope it goes well. >> we'll see what happens with that. karen finney, tom davis, thanks so much. today we wanted to know, did president obama go too far with

his comment about kamala harris or are people overreacting. we had so much response on the show's twitter and facebook, so we put in a lot of your responses. here is what you had to say. lls tweets, no i do not think potus was wrong for complimenting mrs. harris. he commended her on her work and job accomplishments and republicans drool over sarah palin every day and no one says nothing. potus gives one compliment and gets blasted. move on to real news. calvin says the president did not go too far. it's a compliment and do not see any different agenda. a complete overreaction. john cain chimes, in how about he went too far and people are overreacting. mike gallagher writes a fine line was probably crossed by potus. he should stick to business in public. oliver creates, everyone overreacted. it was a compliment and in no way diminishes the great work she's done. cynthia tells us, no, no, brava,

mr. president. you should be able to compliment women without retribution or the harassment police. thanks so much for all of your wonderful responses. you can always write to me at any time. in today's office politics, author and daily show co-creator lizz winstead. in this piece lizz talks about finding the line in satire and knowing when it cross it or not. she's a huge presence on twitter and this week thanks to the south carolina congressional race featuring former governor mark san fard wford who is no l hiking the appalachian trail, lizz has been all over that. >> people always say you're on twitter all the time, do you do nothing else? twitter for me is an office job. what i do is watch and read the news. i write either a premise for a joke, a punch line for a joke, or just sort of thought bubble that is somewhat funny. if i get 25 retweets or more in less than a minute, i favored it

and i put it in a folder or i put it in a word document. at the end of the day i look at that word document and then i categorize it and then i take that material to stage and try it out and try to expand it. so the reason that i'm on twitter so much is that i'm actually using everyone as a test balloon on material that -- so i can see what parts of a story people want to hear about, what parts of a story are resonating with people so then in turn i know that maybe that's where i'll focus my material on. and so you may see me writing nine jokes about mark sanford, but i'll pick the best three, and so that's why i'm out there is much. and i always say to people, you know, hide me. you can unfollow me. i get it. but it's really a writing tool that has been incredibly helpful and amazing for me creatively. >> well, mark sanford has been a topic du jour all week it seems like. >> yes. >> what is your take on that?

>> i think part of what i've seen in south carolina is that republicans don't have a problem voting for philanderers. they voted for newt gingrich in the gop primary in their state, strom thurmond, mark sanford. on a psychological human level, what i simply don't get is when you have been that big of a disaster like you leave and then you say you're on the appalachian trail and unfortunately you pick the week it's nudist week on the appalachian trail and then you really weren't, you were really visiting your mistress in brazil, why you would want to bring all that up again, like i would be running in horror, running away in horror. if somebody sees like my fat thighs in a picture on facebook, i demand that i am untagged. so to have that much baggage of sheer embarrassment in your life that you go, you know what? clearly there's people out there

who don't know what a creep i was. i want to make sure i let them know so that everybody is in on it. it's weird! >> do you care if you go over the line? >> well, i always wonder what the line is because, you know, everyone has a different line, and so if you worry about where the line is, then you may be censoring yourself to making the best thing you can make. there is a fish in the barrel world that we're living in right now where, you know, when someone's denying climate science and saying that there's legitimate rape and that, you know, the hpv vaccine causes all kinds of mental deficiencies, those things sort of speak for themselves, and that level of it makes it easier on some level. i mean, when you hear tina fey say, wow, we just went from the transcript of sarah palin, we didn't even have to write material, that's a little frightening. so when somebody has

consistently been comedy-friendly let's say -- >> very, very delicate. >> that person is going to be where you hit. if you have to explain the vice president went on a hunting trip but you can say the vice president shot a guy in the face or whatever the story is, that's going to be a really nice place with which you can develop material and then you can go deeper. i like to stay with not this is what someone looks like. i like to actually try to make a point about their policies. i don't really care about john boehner's weird tan, although it is hilarious. >> well, tomorrow at this time lizz tells me about the influence of barbie growing up and shares a particularly poignant story about her father which she writes about in her book "lizz free or die." the first official word from the new pope on the subject of sex abuse in the church. ♪ i don't want any trouble. i don't want any trouble either. ♪ [ engine turns over ] you know you forgot to take your mask off, right?

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director without jobs this week. the video shows the coach throwing basketballs and calling them derogatory names and kicking them. it only added to the already tarnished reputation of rutgers. >> reporter: the video cost tim per nitti his job. >> i always have and i always will no matter what want what's best for rutgers. >> pernetti saw the video last november of head basketball coach mike rice kicking and shoving his players at practice, throwing basketballs at them, and using homophobic slurs. in consultation with other university officials, pernetti said he decided to suspend rice rather than fire him. one of those officials, rutgers president, robert barchi, admitted he was told what was on the video but never looked at it until this week. >> i regret i did not ask to see the video when tim first told me of its existence because i am certain that this situation

would have had a very different outcome had i done so. >> reporter: in the press conference, barchi tried to make amends to rutgers gay community. it was just three years ago that student tyler clementi committed suicide after his roommate spied on him during a romantic encounter with a man. >> i also apologize to the lgbt community and all of us who share their values for the homophobic slurs shown on that video. >> reporter: there are calls for barchi to resign, too, but he got a vote of confidence from new jersey governor chris christie in a statement and in person from the school's board of governors. >> i think he's the right person to run this place for many years to come. >> reporter: eric murdoch, the rutgers employee who made the video after he was let go, fired suit against the school for wrongful termination. >> when rutgers finds out something wrong, they should act immediately. >> reporter: a delay that cost the basketball coach and athletic director their jobs and

the school its reputation. anne thompson, nbc news, new york. yet another bizarre turn in the jodi arias trial. why snow white and the seven dwarfs was brought up in court. also, we want to hear from you. head over to facebook and search weekends with al elecex witt ane us. when it came to our plants... we were so confused. how much is too much water? too little? until we got miracle-gro moisture control. it does what basic soils don't by absorbing more water, so it's there when plants need it. yeah, they're bigger and more beautiful. guaranteed. in pots. in the ground. in a ukulele. are you kidding me? that was my idea. with the right soil... everyone grows with miracle-gro.

as if the jodi arias double murder trial isn't bizarre enough, this week it took an even stranger turn going into children's fairytale territory. snow white and the seven dwarfs. joining me is legal analyst lisa green and former prosecutor karen de soto. welcome, ladies. first up, guys, we're going to play some sound and this is from the trial thursday when it make this is really kind of bizarre turn. >> snow white and the seven skar dwarfs is a fairytale by the

brothers grimm, right? >> yes. >> in it a king who has a kid and they name her snow white, yes or no. >> i'm not using the brothers grimm verse. i'm using the walt disney cartoon. >> so there's a difference. all right. but it is true though that snow white had a father, right? >> yes, she did. >> and the father was the king, right? >> yes. >> and it ends up that snow white's mother ends up dying. >> okay. karen, context, please, for this. >> you know, i think this is just weeks of frustration and snow white obviously the psychiatrist was trying to make an example and the prosecutor being very aggressive decided to take advantage of that moment and try and trip her up and make her look like foolish. really that's what happened. >> just a little bit more context and, you know, how often do lawyers get to discuss fairytales, grimm versus disney? it's a rare treat. >> actually quite a lot in criminal trials, believe it or not because most of your clients are in their own fantasy world

to begin with. >> but you have a moment of this -- what this defense expert has been trying to do in her work is work with battered women, use fairytales as examples, as teaching examples. that said, the prosecutor is free to go after her as he did. >> is it going to be a positive or negative sign if the jurors start wanting to question this witness? what do you think? >> so far it has not been helpful for the defense. >> time for questioning and juror questions hopefully is over. every time you do that you have to give the attorneys a chance to rehab. that's one of the reasons why this trial is taking so long. >> okay. something interesting, juror number five dismissed this week over defense's claims that she made prejudicial comments. we have a little bit of sound of her talking with reporters. let's listen to what she said. >> i'm really eager to talk to you and give you my side of the story, but i decided i'm going to wait until the end of the trial. i didn't come there for attention, certainly not for attention. i came there just to be part of

the trial again and to show people that i didn't do anything wrong. i did not do anything wrong. and i'm going to reveal what happened, but after the trial. >> so, lisa, how does this affect the case? can it? >> no. there's a good-sized pool of alternate jurors, and the judge who has struck me as very level-headed, will be able to choose 12 who can then render a verdict. juror number five providing even more color to a trial that we didn't think needed too much help. >> as defense counsel in this case, i would argue that there should have been a mistrial, that her gossiping or whatever happened, it was misconduct and that she has tainted all the other jurors and by her showing up there really just kind of corroborates the fact that something odd is going on and does that, in fact, affect the other jurors when they see her in the courtroom? does that, you know -- is that going to have a negative impact. >> if you're the judge in this case, you know, about what karen just said, what you really want to do is see this through to the end. you know, and that's why a judge -- >> you're not looking for a retrial.

>> the defense attorney is looking for a mistrial because why else would you put somebody on the stand like that for three days saying crazy stuff unless one of your strategies was to hang the jury? >> with regard to the video that was put out there with police questioning arias' parents after she was recently released after her arrest, that was put out there, and they were questioning her sanity. how does that affect this? the jurors see that. >> yes. from the defense standpoint obviously you want to have one of those jurors believe she was a battered wife syndrome, 5u although as a defense attorney over the years we've talked about the battered wife and battered girlfriend, and that's a very difficult case. it's very rare. if you could get one of those jurors to believe it, that's great, mistrial, hang the jury, those are your options in a case where all the evidence is piled up. >> if you look at the severity of the violence -- >> slashed, stabbed --

>> i was going to leave that to karen but yes. >> ear to ear. >> the defense opportunities have to be mounted against that incredible weight of physical evidence, the fact that there's no question about who committed this murder. very tough road for the defense as we've talked about. >> very quickly, how long does this go? >> a couple more rebuttal witnesses, and i think it's probably over after that. this has taken a long time. >> yeah. this was day 41. maybe it's too soon to book us back next week -- >> i'm hoping so. >> for the retrial. >> no, i don't want to go there. let's wrap this thing up with you two. thank you so much, karen and lisa. out of the hospital, the latest on nelson mandela in a live report from south africa. that's why there's glucerna hunger smart shakes. they have carb steady, with carbs that digest slowly to help minimize blood sugar spikes. [ male announcer ] glucerna hunger smart. a smart way to help manage hunger and diabetes.

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but with kids growing up fast, fighting seven signs of aging gets harder. introducing total effects moisturizer plus serum. for the ninety-two practices, two proms, and one driving test yet to come. she'll need our most concentrated total effects ever. why is the sequester forcing doctors to stop treating thousands of cancer patients with potentially life-saving drugs? he's armed and dangerous. it's new video of north korea's

bellicose leader opening fire, but is he ready to fire missiles? it's a million dollar punch. why is that ousted rutgers coach getting a big payoff? and spoiler. how will an arkansas oil spill factor in the keystone pipeline's fate. welcome to weekends with alex witt. let's get to what's happening out there. first to front page politics and new today after criticism from both sides, president obama is defending the budget he plans to send to congress on wednesday. in his weekly address, the president says his plan calls for a balanced approach to deficit reduction. >> we'll make the tough reforms required to strengthen medicare for the future without undermining the rock solid guarantee at its core. and we'll enact common sense tax reform that includes closing wasteful tax loopholes for the wealthy and well-connected. >> the budget -- proposed budget aims to reduce the federal deficit by $1.8 trillion over a decade.

key points, smaller cost of living adjustments to social security, $400 billion in cuts to medicare by reducing payments to health care providers. a payroll tax hike on high-income medicare beneficiaries, and a new tobacco tax to pay for a universal pre-k program. president obama has apologized to kamala harris for calling her the best looking attorney general in the country. he made the comment thursday at an off-camera fund-raiser near san francisco. and joining me now, washington bureau chief for usa today, susan page, and reuters political reporter andy sullivan. and with a welcome to both of you, saw soon, by the way i love your tweet out there saying i'm going to talk sex and politics at with al elects at 1:00. we have jay carney on the president's apology. >> he called her to apologize for the distraction created by his comments, and, you know, they are old friends and good

friends, and he did not want in any way to diminish the attorney general's professional accomplishments and her capabilities. >> conventional wisdom here, susan, did the president need to apologize? >> that's what i asked in the tweet. a lot of people saying, no, it's ridiculous he had to apologize. it's not like he said the worst thing in the world. on the other hand, why does this cause a reaction? because women political candidates have to battle every day being judged not by what they do, not by what they say or what they believe, but by how they look so that even when the comments are positive as the president's comments were, it creates a problem. it's a dilemma for women political candidates who would prefer not to have owe to face them. >> i will say we put the question out there as well. overwhelm responses that the president didn't do something bad here, just kind of keep it in perspective. but you're right women have to deal with things like that.

we'll move on with that. andy, let's go to the president's budget. he's certainly getting flack from his own party for the proposed changes to the entitlement programs. what is the strategy here? >> i think the strategy, alex, is to show the republican senators that he's having dinner with on a regular basis that he's serious about reaching a grand bargain, and that would necessarily involve pains for both sides of the aisle because, as you noted, when you tackle these very popular benefit programs like medicare and social security, a lot of democrats and a lot of liberals in general are going to get very upset by that. but in order to do that, he also needs buy-in from the right to have the tax increases. to get the republican senators to meet him halfway, he has to show them i'm taking on my own party as well. >> but susan, for political purposes, doesn't this put the president in a good position with republicans because now he can argue, look, i'm compromising? >> perhaps, although the risk for the white house in doing this is that he's laid out a

compromise plan. what if the republicans take it as a starting point for negotiations, not the final plan? that's a risk, but i think the white house has calculated that the only prospect for getting a kind of grand bargain that would include entitlement changes and some of the tax hikes they want is if they appeal to these more moderate republican senators. the president puts out his budget on wednesday. that night he meets with a dozen of these republican senators over dinner. if there's going to be a deal to be done, watch that dinner. >> i want you both to weigh in on this because we were talking about the latest jobs report. got the numbers on friday and only 88,000 jobs were added last month, way below the estimates of 200,000. of course, democrats are going to blame the sequester for lack of job growth, the republicans blame the expiration of the bush tax cuts. where do you see the truth, andy? >> where do i see the truth? i think some of it has to do with what washington is doing, and a lot of it has to do with the economy. i mean, this is a big, gigantic

complicated economy. the jobless rate is a function of all sorts of things. in washington you have two big forces that are acting in opposite directions. you've got the federal reserve priming the pump and trying to keep interest rates as low as possible. at the same time you have got a pretty big austerity push in congress. even president obama's talking about cutting spending even more than we're already seeing in the sequester. so you've got these two things acting against each other and i think it will allow people to see what they want to see. if you're a republican you say it's because the president is spending too much. if you're a democrat, you say it's because of those bad republicans who are cutting spending. >> but, susan, on a practical level, do you think this is because of the payroll tax cut not being extended, people have less money in their paychecks? look at the retail industry, 24,000 jobs cut there. >> definitely a factor. uncertainty over the sequester i think also a factor making employers a little nervous about hiring. but at the end of the day i think the president observwns t

economy. if the economy starts to really get bad, if we see the job numbers that were so disappointed yesterday, i think at the end of the day it's the president, whoever he is, that ends up paying the price. >> andy, your latest article is about the faa delaying the planned closure of the air-traffic control towers at the regional airports. this all stems, of course, from the sequester. what's the latest there? why the delay and how long do you think it will last? >> well, i think the faa was put in a really uncomfortable position. this is a perfect example of why the sequester is a terrible idea and a real mess. when you try to implement it, things like this happen. their goal was to only close towers at the smallest airports but a lot of the really smallest ones were protected for various reasons. they had a special protection in the budget or there's labor rules that prevented the faa from closing them quickly. so they had to make this sort of ash traesh decision and a lot of airports said we don't like that, we're going to sue you and make the argument you're putting air safety at risk. it becomes very hard for the faa to make the argument that, no,

safety won't get compromised when it looks to arbitrary. >> susan and sandy, as always, a pleasure. thanks. >> thanks. developing news from north korea today. there is word of north korea putting in place two missiles for possible use against the south and even warning some countries to evacuate its diplomats. nbc's jim maceda is in seoul, south korea. we just got word that we lost that satellite signal. for those of you with us last hour, we've had a couple issues. apparently he's just popped back. jim, if you can hear me, i'm going to ask you this question. you have said it's quieted down a little bit, what's the latest? >> reporter: well, we were talking earlier, an hour earlier, about whether there was a trigger. what would, in fact, trigger a south korean response? and we didn't get a chance to talk about that. i really think it's important that the trigger, if you look at it, the trigger has really changed. it's shifted. before say two or three years ago, the south koreans under great pressure from the u.s. and

allies, you remember they agreed to not respond to significant attacks coming from north korea. it was called strategic patience. back in 2010 when the north fired that torpedo into a south korean vessel killing almost 50 sailors, the south just bit its tongue. it didn't react. the u.s. and south korea, however, came, i think, to regret that tactic because it didn't pay off. north korea just became more emboldened. so now south korea in addition to the fact that it has a tough woman president, mrs. park geun-h geun-hye, they're calling for retaliation against any provocation. certainly a deadly attack, i believe, like the one we saw in 2010 would today trigger a robust response from the south and also very important to keep in mind the north koreans know that very well, alex. >> okay. nbc's jim maceda in soum, south

kor korea. thank you, jim. let's go to south africa where former president nelson mandela is at home now resting after being discharged from the hospital a little earlier today. mandela was being treated for a recurring lung infection and pneumon pneumonia. nbc's ron allen is there in south africa for us. ron, was this release expected? it seemed like he was getting all this treatment and then all of a sudden he's being released. >> reporter: well, we've been hearing encouraging words in the past few days from his wife and from doctors and others speculating that things were improving. so it's not a big surprise that he was released now, but, of course, everything is very unpre2kik9abunpr unpredictable in this environment. he's 94 and will be 95 in july. every time it's happened, and it's happened three times in the past four months that he's gone to the hospital, there is a lot of tension, a lot of anxiety, a lot of worry about what his fate might be. this time was different, too. he was rushed to the hospital in the dead of night, and the government made no attempt as it

has in the post to suggest this was a routine visit or this was something that was not serious. but, again, word has been trickling out in recent days that his condition was improving. that he was released was not a big surprise. still, he's receiving a lot of medical care at his home. his home, there are doctors here, we believe. there's a lot of advanced care possible here for him. so, again, we're not saying that he is -- we don't know a lot about his medical condition is the bottom line. this is not a question where doctors give press conferences and release details. we know he is better than he was when he went into the hospital but the bottom line is he's very frail. he's not been seen in public since about 2010 or so. people who have met with him say that he is at times not very present, that he's very forgetful, very frail individual, and, of course, here and around the world people continue to pray for his well-being. >> we all do. nbc's ron allen in johannesburg. the sequester is becoming a matter of life and death for some patients because their

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now to a shocking side effect of those automatic budget cuts that kicked in last month. an unintended consequence that's gotten almost no attention until now. "the washington post" reports that as a result of the budget cuts, cancer clinics across the country have begun turning away thousands of medicare patients because it's just too expensive to treat them. joining me, sarah cliff, health care reporter for "the washington post," and, sarah, this is a startling story, one that we all know about thanks in large part to your reporting, so we thank you for that. but essentially cancer clinics say the budget cuts are making it financially impossible for them to administer key though therapy drugs. take me through this. >> yeah. you know, it's a surprising story to come onto but

essentially what's happening is these doctors who see medicare patients, they get reimbursed for the price of a chemotherapy drug plus 6% to cover the overhead of ordering the drug and storing it. what they're saying is because of this 2% sequester cut, that all comes out of their 6% overhead. they can't change the price of the drug, so it's more like a 33% cut, and they're saying that just makes it too expensive to see some of the medicare patients they've been seeing in the past. >> boy, i don't know how these guys are having to turn away patients. it must be awful to go through that. how many patients are we talking about? >> it's hard to know how many nationally. i have talked to clinics from new york to south carolina that are turning away patients. some say it's in the thousands, some in the hundreds, but we are seeing it in multiple states that doctors are really running through their numbers and saying it's a choice between either seeing this set of patients or keeping my business open, and i have to keep operating. it just doesn't work to see these people anymore. >> so what happens to the

patients who get turned away? >> so we're seeing a few things. most of the doctors are trying to refer them to a local hospital that also administers chemotherapy although one of the weird quirks of how medicare works is it's more expensive to have a patient seen in the hospital. >> yeah. >> so this law that was supposed to save the government money is actually going to make chemotherapy more expensive. so it's almost exactly the opposite with this disruption to seniors care all at the same time. >> it just doesn't make sense because it's more costly to do it out of a hospital. now, most medications, sarah, are not affected by these automatic budget cuts but che chemotherapy drugs are. was this an oversight by lawmakers? does it appear they simply failed to realize this would happen? >> you know, they knew it would hit chemotherapy drugs. the reason that chemotherapy drugs are in this situation is because they have to be administered by a doctor, so they're part of the medicare program part b that covers

doctor visits. they knew it was going to be an across-the-board cut. i think what we're seeing here is because the sequester hits every part of federal spending there are things like this that no one thought through the consequences. now about a few months after the sequester took effect, we're starting to see what the consequences actually look like. >> so, sarah, does there appear to be any realistic chance that lawmakers will take a look at this, realize there's this unexpected impact on cancer patients, and try to fix that? >> so what we know right now is medicare says they can't fix it because these boards have to be across -- because these cuts have to be across the board, their hands are essentially tied. it would have to go through congress like you mention. you know, i have talked to some leths lay fors. there's interesting in getting this fixed but as you well know, it's really hard to move legislation through congress. you know, it would seem like securing cancer care for medicare patients would be one of the things you could come to bipartisan agreement on, but we're still waiting to see whether that's something that

legislators want to take action on. >> do you have any sense whether people that are affected by this have been writing their legislators? honestly, your story, your reporting and all the ancillary things that have come as a result of that, is this the first lawmakers are getting a firsthand introduction as to what's happening? >> some lawmakers heard about it a little bit earlier. there was one clinic in connecticut that sent its medicare patients a letter in mid march saying we can't see you if the sequester cuts go through because for medicare they were starting april 1st. i think they are probably hearing from patients. i talked to one oncologist in new jersey who was literally handing her patients numbers for their senators and representatives as she was turning them away saying this is who you need to call to fix this. i don't want to turn you away. so i think they are going to hear from some patients and i really have seen since i wrote my story this week a lot more interest from legislators possibly doing something but again how much they can pass through congress remains to be

seen. >> okay. from "the washington post," sarah kliff with some interesting reporting. thanks for coming on. other political headlines now, paul ryan surely won't like to hear this but a new think tank report recommends ryan and his colleagues expand social security, not cut it. the upshot from the new america foundation, every retiree would receive a minimum of more than $11,500 a year. that would require a tax hike of more than 3.5% of the gdp. stephen colbert meeting and greeting at the capitol looking more like he's the colbert running for office. he was there to record segments for his show but managed to stop for a question about his sister's chances of winning a congressional seat. >> i think it's good. i think it's good. i'm happy. >> do you plan on going down there and campaigning? >> i'll help my sister anyway i can. >> after that colbert went back to pressing the flesh. and renowned journalist bob woodward probably shouldn't expect a dinner invite from al

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the day building a play set begins with a surprise twinge of back pain... and a choice. take up to 4 advil in a day or 2 aleve for all day relief. [ male announcer ] that's handy. ♪ now to our three big money headlines. one, flatline. two, less than zperow. and, three, bad hands. joining me is heatha, with a good day to you. this dispiriting jobs report for the month of march, what's behind it ? >> the economy only added 88,000 jobs. the smallest amount since june of last year. now, remember we've been talking about how the dow jones has been on this tear. this news rocked wall street, sent stocks yesterday plummeting down 171 points. it did rebound a little bit, but

the dow did close at a lower point, and wall street wasn't the only one scrambling. a lot of economists were scrambling to make these other revisions to the economy. they had anticipated growth being at about 3% for the year. they've revised it down to 2.2%. >> so what are the sectors that have lost or gained jobs? >> well, there are two sectors. it was retail and manufacturing. now, retail, they didn't add jobs. they added -- they actually declined jobs about 24,000 of them, and also manufacturing, they decreased jobs about 3,000. and really analysts are saying that might have something to do with the sequester. now, i spoke to people at the national retail federation, this is the federation that a lot of retailers are members of, they sent out a press release saying -- urging congress to come up with a viable economic plan to try to get those jobs back. it's really those business that is feel they can't add those jobs.

and historically retail has been one of those sectors that have added jobs as opposed to getting rid of them. >> what about hurricane sandy? that really dealt a bad hand to the atlantic city casinos. >> definitely, alex. the casinos have seen a 27% decline in profits over the last year. now, they were really citing that had something to do with hurricane sandy, but also philadelphia, pennsylvania, and new york has also added casinos. so that attrition was going to those other states. there's another casino in atlantic city that applied for bankruptcy just in the last year. so we're really seeing that sort of effect happening there. alex, i know one way we can get those people back to atlantic city, want to hear it? >> tell me. >> just putting it out there. if the boss would just do -- bruce springsteen would just do a concert, i'm sure people would come floating back. >> he goes, we're going together. >> i'm sure a lot of people would agree. >> thank you, hitha.

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welcome back to weekends with al elecex witt. secretary of state john kerry has left on a nine-day diplomatic trip to take him to the middle east for the third time in two weeks. his first stop, turkey. kerry will go to asia. this morning's departure was delayed three hours because of a problem with the plane's door. in kazakhstan, a second day of talks on iran's nuclear program wrapped up with no agreement and no more talks scheduled. the u.s. and five other world powers negotiated with iran about cutting back on enriching uranium, but the european union policy chief says the two sides are far from reaching a conclusion. julian assange may be a rebel with a cause but now he's hoping to run for office in australia. wikileaks has registered as a

political party to assange can run for a state senate seat. he still remains at the embassy in london to avoid extradition to sweden. a washington state man is recovering after being trapped in a trench. he was working in the trench yesterday when it caved in and it buried the man up to his neck. it took rescue workers an hour to extricate the man. boeing says it has finished certification testing for a new battery system on the grounded dreamliner. they need faa approval of the test results before airlines can fly the 787s again. those are your fast five headlines. a federal lawsuit has been filed in arkansas after an exxonmobil pipeline ruptured spilling up to 5,000 barrels of oil in central arkansas. the spill happened a week ago. one neighborhood remains in lockdown and it's unclear when it's going to be reopened. all of this comes as the president is expected to make a decision soon on the keystone pipeline. and joining me now, coral

davenport, energy and environment correspondent for "the national journal." welcome back. >> it's good to be here. >> let's talk about this arkansas spill. put it into context here. a couple dozen homes, people had to be evacuated. they're still out of their homes and how does this affect the president's decision on keystone potentially? >> well, alex, obviously this gives a lot of ammunition to opponents of the keystone pipeline. there's a very vocal and active environmental movement involved in protesting the pipeline and trying to send the message to the president to block it, to disprove it. however, at the end of the day when the president makes the decision about whether or not to approve the keystone pipeline, the biggest piece of the decision he'll have to determine whether or not the pipeline is in the national interest, and kind of the blooirn environmentenvironmen bottom lie environmental decision has to do

with whether or not the united states wants to give a market to this polluting ail that will contribute to global warming. this on the ground event gives a lot of opposition -- gives a lot of ammunition to the opposition, but it may not play intensely into sort of the big macro policy decisions that the president will have to make. >> but there's this spill, also another one in minnesota that was a train derailment, 30,000 gallons of oil spilling there. let's talk about people that are riled up for sure. there's a baltimore sun editorial this week which says transporting oil from alberta's tar sands is thought to be far more dangerous since the crude produced there is heavier and more corrosive, more like peanut butter than 10w-40. that makes it much more difficult to clean up. so how much worse would a spill from keystone be? >> it does appear that a spill from keystone would be a lot worse than a spill from -- a spill from another pipeline.

and that's sort of what this whole debate is about is this particular oil from these canadian tar sands is a lot dirtier than most oil that we're used to. getting it out of the ground produces about 30% more global warming greenhouse gas emissions. that's one piece of it, and it's so thick and heavy that a spill from it will have a much greater impact. so again the pieces against it are certainly adding up. on the other hand, i would point out that last month the state department put out an environmental impact report, an environmental impact statement, on the impact of this pipeline, and i think a lot of people read that statement and it doesn't really make a case for not building the pipeline. it doesn't really -- >> well, but you know what? that's if the infrastructure holds because listen to this, and i don't have to tell you, you know more than half the nation's current pipelines, they were built before 1970.

honestly, could we be seeing more of these leaks in old pipelines and then doesn't that highlight the need for newer ones with safer technology? >> certainly i think that we probably are going to be seeing more leaks in pipelines going forward. as you pointed out the nation -- you know, half the nation is covered with these pipelines. you know, proponents of the keystone pipeline will point out that, you know, most days go by without a spill. that these -- oil is piped through pipelines across the country and we don't really hear about it. this is just how it moves. but if we start to see more of these, if this kind of becomes a bigger part of the debate in the same way that we've seen problems with other aging u.s. infrastructure, it could become more a part -- it could press more on the decision that the president will make. it's interesting because i think about a year ago the conventional wisdom was that after the election the president

would just approve the pipeline and move on. the longer that this decision is delayed, i think the bigger a question mark it becomes. >> what's interesting is keystone is really becoming a heated topic. it was so last night on "real time with bill maher." let's take a listen. >> create new infrastructure in this country and you want jobs and yet you are one of the senators who is opposed to building the keystone pipeline which is about 10,000 high-paying, union jobs. there's not a single argument against that. >> what a small price to pay for everybody dying. >> okay. bill maher is joking there for a bit but has there been a shift at all in the public's perception of the keystone project? >> the public -- public polls consistently show that the majority of the public does support the project. we've seen that consistently. there have been pew and gallup polls that show public support in favor. so there doesn't seem to have been a significant shift yet.

the big group that is leading the environmental opposition to keystone, there's a group called 350.org and they're working with groups like the sierra club. they're working as hard as they can to raise awareness of this. their plan for this spring, they had a big rally here in washington in february, and then the plan for the spring is to hold rallies around the country and keep getting people arrested. their goal is to hold rallies, raise awareness, get people arrested, hold the president's feet to the fire on this. so their hope is that the more that they raise awareness of this as a group and if there are some other incidents like this spill, that that could move the needle on public perception. we haven't seen that needle move yet though. >> okay. carol davenport, many thanks, as always. >> great to be here. former cia director david petraeus might have apologized for his extramarital affair with his biographer, but that isn't stopping the fbi's investigation

into whether classified documents got into broadwell's hands. the fbi visited petraeus's washington, d.c., home yesterday although it's not clear if he was home at the time. petraeus stepped down from his post last year after admitting to an affair with broadwell. rutgers athletic director tim pernetti is the latest official forced out over the scandal rocking the new jersey school. it's related to this basketball practice video in which it shows former basketball coach mike rice hurling insults, gay slurs, and basketballs at players. rice was fired wednesday but new jersey star ledger is reporting both pernetti and rice are not walking away empty handed. according to the paper, the athletic director and the former coach are getting $1.2 million and $1 million respectively. i spoke to visiting sports journalism professor at the university of maryland kevin blackstone and former rutgers assistant coach vin par reeise t this growing scandal. give me your reaction. >> i think when you look at this

situation, it's an unfortunate situation. it's one where tim pernetti was honorable and he put this on his shoulders and he stuck up for his first hire which was mike rice and the head coach, unfortunately, what you saw in his resignation letter is what we've been hearing from the basketball community. he wanted mike rice to go back in the winter, could not get it done with the university officials. >> you bring this up, i want to bring the quote. specifically here is what he writes. my first instincts when i saw the videotape was to fire him immediately. however, rutgers decided to follow a process involving university lawyers, human resources, professionals, and outside counsel. the consensus was that university policy would not justify dismissal. the word scapegoat has got to come to mind here. >> he is a scapegoat and it's not because he was not well-liked. this is a situation -- >> the students are outraged. >> now, the rutgers alumni, a lot of people are outraged there

because of president barchi coming out yesterday and saying it was not until tuesday night at 10:00 p.m. that he viewed this videotape. but i don't think you're going to see future heads roll right now the way people are speculating. he has a lot of support by the state politics, governor christiee came out and supported him. he's part of the big partnership between rutgers university and the medical schools throughout the state. i think the president is okay. >> it's all about money. that's what this is all about. this is an unholy marriage between a for profit billion dollar corporation which is the ncaa and revenue generating football and basketball and what is ostensibly a noble pursuit for higher education, but, you know, a lot of colleges are in a lot of trouble, and this is why not one is without fault here. coaches can do this. they can get away with it, and the reason they can do it and get away with it is because college student athletes as the ncaa likes to call them have

absolutely no rights. they do not believe they have rights. they do not believe they can ban together and bring about change. >> you can check out the rest of our conversation on our website. just go to tv.msnbc.com and click on weekends with alex witt. president obama has learned flattery will get him nowhere but in hot water. was his best looking remark really out of line? asional have constipation, diarrhea, gas, bloating? yes! one phillips' colon health probiotic cap each day helps defend against these digestive issues...

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the non-habit forming sleep-aid from the makers of nyquil®. ♪ let's get a quick check now with craig melvin on what he has kooming up. craig, to you. >> thanks, alex. we are live over the next three hours with the latest on immigration, guns, and budget debates that are about to hit capitol hill come monday. plus, a look at the music and meaning of prince. and a look behind the scenes at the george w. bush white house with the man who spent nearly every waking moment by the president's side and what we make of hillary clinton's week that was. all that and a whole lot more straight ahead, three hours. >> we'll be there for it. thank you so much. it is time now for the big

three, budget battle, much ado, and best week, worst week. democratic strategist morris reed, staff writer for salon.com erin camone, and susan dell por -- dell percent yo. >> the president saying this is not my ideal but it's a compromise. how do you see his calculation? >> the best thing we can say about this budget is it will probably never become reality. right now the president is really trying to protect he's reasonable and is willing to compromise, that he's willing to put social security on the tanl in exchange for possible revenue. the problem is he's unlikely to get any of those things. i think it's a dangerous way to go. >> okay. she's put out there what the president is trying to do here, susan. let's get to house speaker john boehner's reaction.

in the president believes this modest entitlement savings are needed to help shore up these programs, there's no reason they should be held hostage for more tax hikes. the president is saying he's willing to compromise. >> and republicans are going to have to compromise with the president. but here is the issue that is actually facing democrats right now. the president's budget did come out and really start from a compromising position. and it wasn't like the republicans or the senate who came up with everyone was all rah-rah behind their own parties. he comes out as a compromise. is na a starting point or an ending point? the fact is if you reveal that type of budget, it kaets that it should be a starting point. so where are the negotiations going to go? but the bigger picture is can this lead to a grand bargain? it's clear by the president's budget that he really wants to hit a grand bargain and so should the house, frankly, because they need to move off this issue for a couple years in order to get anything else done. >> and they're going to have

until august to get this done. morris, we have some democrats who certainly criticized the plan. let's listen to democratic congresswoman karen bass of california. >> he is coming up with cuts. he's coming up with changes that, again, the democrats are not excited about but let's see what the overall package is. i happen to believe there's ways we can find savings. there's ways we can strengthen programs that are very important such as social security and medicare without cutting benefits. >> so is the president's compromise a double-edged sword? because in addition to republican criticism, he's also turning off members of his own party. >> well, he's probably got it a little right. if he's making them mad on the left and the right. he may have it right in the middle. i think that's going to happen is the president is really trying to show he's billion realistic and he really does want to get something done. we hope that folks on the hill

will see this. anytime that you have your democratic friends squawking at what you're doing, we would hope the republicans will see this is a serious opportunity to make some compromises and really as my colleague susan said, move toward a grand bargain. i don't think grand things get done anymore in d.c., but certainly we can move and have these folks do the right things to make sure that the budget is moving in the right direction and we get something done this year. >> okay. let's move now to our next topic. much ado. it's been m ai do on twitter. the president having apologized for getting criticized for calling california attorney general kamala harris good looking, and here is what president clinton's former press secretary campaign manager, remember, james carville had to say. >> i'm a 68-year-old guy, and i do notice honestly the way women look sometimes but you got to learn to sort of keep your opinions to yourself. i doubt if he'll do it again. not the worst thing that ever

happened. >> okay, weigh in on this. fair criticism or overblown? >> i agree it's not the worst thing that after happened but i'm glad the president apologized because his comments can't be seen in a vacuum. women still struggle to be taken seriously and women are still really valued based on their looks and the president of the united states, a supposed progressive, should not be enforcing that. >> you're chuckling a bit. >> i'm not chuckling, it is serious, but when a compliment becomes this big to-do, it is a bit overwhelming. now, i'd like to say, if it was a republican who had said that kind of comment, i'm sure she would have been named outdated and not sensitive to women's issues and everything else. yes, the president did do the right thing in apologizing, but it seems just crazy that we're in an age that you have to apologize for saying something nice about somebody. >> we have to make the point here that the president has called guys good looking. remember, he called out i think it was ken salazar who was standing in the front row, good looking guy there. >> when guys are judged harshly

the same way that women are, when women's weight, women's aging, the way that they look, it's so contingent on how they're treated in the world, when it's equal, it will be the same thing when the president does it. >> i will say overwhelmingly my twitter response has been like move on, get over it. this is not something to be all upset b >> more upset what about what the administration did about plan b but a good moment a republican did it we would be upset too a moment to hold people on our side accountable. >> alex, i will not apologize i'm on a panel with three very good looking women. >> right on. say more advice a good looking guy or in trouble for saying this? you think bottom line, morris, the president should have apologized or not so much? >> he should v i don't think he will do it again. kamela is good looking so is my panel so were my panelists. >> say you were going to get in trouble now for saying it. just saying. thank you. coming up next, the big

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we are back with the big three, get to the best and worst of the week, if you guys were able to listen to our conversation during the commercial, really good, morris, i don't know if could you hear it there but we have been talking about this. wrote an articulate, great article around put forward your position, the president overstepped his boundaries there with the good-looking comment, we should say but getting really tough reaction out there. >> i can handle it. i understand people think they are we are trying to police speech but the comments have to be viewed that women are underrepresented in women of power, paid less a lot of trouble getting respect in the workplace, i think it's reinforcing a system where from the start, we tell women that one of the things most valuable about them is how they look. when it's a compliment these great, but what about the people who aren't considered beautiful

in our society? >> the fact that the president and cam mala harris were long time friends and if this wasn't the only thing, accomplished, capable, best ag and great looking as well, to me in the big context, wasn't as harshize think so many people are weighing in. >> i weighed in on gender and politics, one of many things i care about, in addition to reproductive rights policy and the budget. this is part of the system that tells women what they are vulnerable for, friends, may or may not have been offended, i think it affects women as class. >> this has gone too far. here is a president signed the lilly ledbetter law you a guy that gets it on women's issue, why i selected her as my winner of the week. this san opportunity for people

to look that i can be good looking do and great job. started off by saying she was a very fabulous attorney general and accomplished, all this overwhelming -- much to do about nothing. the president right on women's issues. >> the problem with kim jong-un, not as good looking, why he gets a worst for the would neck is >> -- for the week? >> he is pressing a button that he doesn't need to push. >> what do you think are the winners? >> a federal judge appointed by ronald reagan, women can now access emergency contraception without having to show an i.d. and that includes women who are under 17 who need t >> okay. worst? >> and the worst, desegregation it you had a bad week because some teenagers, four very inspiring teenagers rochelle, georgia, fighting to have a desegregated prom. >> best week, immigration reform, looks like we are moving forward and have a deal when they come back from break. >> be great r >> the worst week goes all new yorkers, if you look at the

corruption scandal that came over new york, several elected officials being conned in bribery scams. >> switching parties. >> new york has had a bad week. >> okay. we have had a good end of the show with the three of you. thank you so much, morris in d.c. a wrap of "weekends with alex witt." see you here tomorrow at noon eastern. up next, craig melvin. [ all ] fort benning, georgia, in 1999. [ male announcer ] usaa auto insurance is often handed down from generation to generation because it offers a superior level of protection and because usaa's commitment to serve the military, veterans, and their families is without equal. begin your legacy. get an auto-insurance quote. usaa. we know what it means to serve.

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